yellow tips and a little curling??

Thats nute burn

 

until u invest in a tds or ec meter, this definitely wont be your 1st or last experiencing this nutrient burn. best i can suggest now with no meters is to cut ur present solution in half until u can properly take care of your plants. thats a necessity bro, GET ONE if your serious about growing.

 

Lose the magical! I'm sure this will start a debate but high levels of ca and mg can lock one another out and cause what LOOKS to be like a ca or mg def but its from the high levels. I also wouldn't introduce the koolbloom until you see preflowers.

Botanicare alone is capable of growing a perfectly healthy plant.

 

Why would you think that? I have burned small pants with 300ppm. It does not matter what that bottle says, only what your plants say. All strains eat different and strains vary from environment to state of growth or plant vigor all effect eating.

To fix just give then a lighter dose of nutes for a week or two. I'm talking like 1/8 recommendation then once they stabilize you can try to move to 1/4 and then 1/2 streangth off the bottle. Don't go over 1/2 dose for max if you don't have a ppm meter. You need a ppm meter and to monitor your plants eating to know if your over feeding or under. If you don't know how then this linked post will tell you how to read your plants eating.

http://forum.grasscity.com/hydroponic-growing/1143567-healthy-hydroponics-ppm-ph.html

And its not too late. Early stages still.

 

I have a tiny, tiny little bit of yellowing on the very tips of some of my leaves. Everything else still looks super healthy. Is that nute burn as well?

 

No, it is common for leaf tip burn when plants are being feed with high nute levels. It's not bad unless it progresses from that stage.

The only true way to tell if you under or over feeding is by watching how your plants eating is via daily ppm readings.

 

Yah, I still don't have a ppm meter, probably won't have it until my next grow. I'm using GH nutes at about 80-90% strength based on their published feeding charts. They seem to be taking in more and more water each day and PH is pretty stable (usually around 6ish). I probably added 4-5 gallons today. Some is due to evaporation so I've brought my room temp down (I was running close to 85F, now I'm closer to 79-80 and that's helped with humidity). Is it normal that some of the leaves are different shades of green? It seems like most of my Skunk clones are very bright green (compared to the super dark green White Rhino clones), but there are a few darker green fan leaves and such that almost look out of place.

 

Dark green leaves are signs of high amounts of nitrogen, which means you're running alot of fertilizer. Another sign of high N is when the leaves curl under. Each strain is different and the age or maturity of any plant will change how is responds to fertilizer. I woulden't worry too much about different shades of green as long as everything is green you're golden...lol

You can monitor your feeding somewhat with only ph testing. It should rise slightly or stay relatively stable. If it constantly drops that is a sign of over fertilizing and or root rot.

 

You are somewhere close to half way through, give or take... most of your weight will usually come on during the last half of your cycle. You have got good info above, about what to do if you don't have a TDS/PPM meter, but you should really get one... invaluable tool with hydro... don't want to F-it up at the end...

 

I've actually noticed with this last res change my PH was doing some funny things - the res is normally fairly stable around 6.0 and rises very slightly. Over the past 24 hours it's kind of been all over the board. A few days ago I tilted my table back just a hair to get more water into the back corner, but now it doesn't drain quite as well - there seems to be about 1/8" of standing water now. This is bad, right? I was worried the plants in the far corner weren't getting as much water and nutes as the ones in the front, but it's probably not worth a case of root rot. That standing water could explain the erratic PH I think...

 

That I have no idea about. Sorry I wouldn't steer anyone wrong on a subject I know little on. I would think they are suppose to drain completely though. Maybe you could add another drain or flood the table for longer at its original angle. Just a few ideas but really no experience with this type of setup.

 

you answered your own question tilt it back

 

Already done lol. PH is still acting a little funny, but doesn't it always take a day or two of adjustment after a res change? Has for me so far anyway...

 

you may have a film of algea raising Ph on the table. Cover it with reflective mylar. This will block light from hitting the water and reflect light back at your plants. If you still have Ph issues after this, somethings WRONG do that and check back in with Ph results

 

My table is covered, but it's a thin sheet of hardboard so it's kind of a tan color. Not super reflective, but it keeps the algae down. I know I have a little bit where I was leaving the hole over the fittings open and a little grows on my tubing and such where light hits it but for the most part I think I'm good. I'm hoping it was just the standing water i mentioned in the other thread, which I've mostly corrected now. Even after the correction, a flat table like that just doesn't always drain completely, but if it's only a small fraction of the roots that stay wet it obviously isn't a huge problem because that has to be common to pretty much all table style ebb & flows. I do think if I build another table I will design it to drain a bit differently, but I'm leaning towards an NFT system (although I'm still unclear why running water doesn't cause root rot, but standing water will??).

 

its about oxygen/CO2 concentration. The air pumps in the "standing water" keep it aerated just like in the NFT. Neither one actually cause root rot now STAGNANT water on the other hand...